Cambridge (CIE) IGCSE

Biology
Characteristics, Classification &
Features of Organisms
Contents
Characteristics of Living Organisms
Concept & Uses of Classification
Systems
Concept & Uses of Classification Systems Continued
Features of Organisms
Features of Organisms Continued

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Characteristics of Living Organisms
Your notes
Characteristics of Living
Organisms
Movement: an action by an organism or part of an organism causing a
change of position or place

Respiration: the chemical reactions that break down nutrient molecules in

living cells to release energy for metabolism

Sensitivity: the ability to detect or sense stimuli in the internal or external

environment and to make appropriate responses

Growth: a permanent increase in size and dry mass by an increase in cell

number or cell size or both

Reproduction: the processes that make more of the same kind of organism

Excretion: the removal from organisms of toxic materials, the waste

products of metabolism (chemical reactions in cells including respiration)
and substances in excess of requirements

Nutrition: the taking in of materials for energy, growth and development;

plants require light, carbon dioxide, water and ions; animals need organic
compounds, ions and usually need water

Examiner Tips and Tricks

Use this mnemonic to help you remember these processes:

MRS. GREN

Movement
Respiration
Sensitivity
Growth and development
Reproduction
Excretion
Nutrition

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Concept & Uses of Classification Systems
Your notes
How Organisms are
Classified
There are millions of species of organisms on Earth

A species is defined as a group of organisms that can reproduce to

produce fertile offspring

These species can be classified into groups by the features that they
share e. g. all mammals have bodies covered in hair, feed young from
mammary glands and have external ears (pinnas)

The Binomial System

Organisms were first classified by a Swedish naturalist called Linnaeus
in a way that allows the subdivision of living organisms into smaller and
more specialised groups

The species in these groups have more and more features in

common the more subdivided they get

He named organisms in Latin using the binomial system where the scientific
name of an organism is made up of two parts starting with the genus
(always given a capital letter) and followed by the species (starting with a
lower case letter)

When typed binomial names are always in italics (which indicates they are Latin) e. g.
Homo sapiens

The sequence of classification is: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family,

Genus, Species

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 Your notes

Linnaeus’s system of classification

Examiner Tips and Tricks

The order of classification can be remembered by using a

mnemonic like: KING PHILIP CAME OVER FOR GRAN’S

SPAGHETTI

Dichotomous Keys
Keys are used to identify organisms based on a series of questions about their features

Dichotomous means ‘branching into two’ and it leads the user through to
the name of the organism by giving two descriptions at a time and asking
them to choose

Each choice leads the user onto another two descriptions

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In order to successfully navigate a key:

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[Link] need to pick a single organism to start with, or you may be
presented with an unfamiliar one as part of an exam questions
Your notes
[Link] the statements from the beginning. Each statement or question you
should be able to answer using the information provided in the question
or an image given as part of the question.

[Link] there will be no more statements or questions left and you

will have the name of the organism

[Link] then pick another organism and start at the beginning of the
key again, repeating until all organisms are named

Example of a dichotomous key#1

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 Your notes

Example of a dichotomous key#2

Examiner Tips and Tricks

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Simple dichotomous keys almost always come up in the multiple choice
paper, so make sure you can use one. Very occasionally they showup in
the theory paper, and when they do you almost always have to use one Your notes
instead of constructing one, so focus on this rather than spending hours
learning to construct them yourself!

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 Concept & Uses of Classification Systems Continued
Your notes

Reflecting Evolutionary Relationships:

Extended
Extended Tier Only
Classification systems aim to reflect evolutionary relationships between species

Traditional biological classification systems grouped organisms

based on the features that they shared

If organisms shared more similar features then they were said to be

more closely related

In the past, scientists have encountered many difficulties when trying to

determine the evolutionary relationships of species based on this method

Using the physical features of species (such as colour/shape/size)

has many limitations and can often lead to the wrong classification
of species

Using DNA to Classify Organisms:

Extended
Extended Tier Only
Organisms share features because they originally descend from a common ancestor

Example: all mammals have bodies covered in hair, feed young from
mammary glands and have external ears (pinnas)

Originally, organisms were classified using morphology (the overall form

and shape of the organism, e. g. whether it had wings or legs) and anatomy
(the detailed body structure as determined by dissection)

As technology advanced, microscopes, knowledge of biochemistry and

eventually
DNA sequencing allowed us to classify organisms using a more scientific
approach

Studies of DNA sequences of different species show that the more similar the
base sequences in the DNA of two species, the more closely related those two
species are (and the more recent in time their common ancestor is)

This means that the base sequences in a mammal’s DNA are more closely
related to all other mammals than to any other vertebrate groups

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 Your notes

DNA sequences can show how closely related different species are

The sequences above show that Brachinus armiger and Brachinus hirsutus
are more closely related than any other species in the list as their DNA
sequences are identical except for the last but one base (B. armiger has a T
in that position whereas B. hirsutus has an A)

As DNA base sequences are used to code for amino acid sequences in
proteins, the similarities in amino acid sequences can also be used to
determine how closely related organisms are

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Features of Organisms
Your notes
The Five
Kingdoms
The first division of living things in the classification system is to put them
into one of five kingdoms. They are:

Animals

Plants

Fungi

Protoctists

Prokaryotes

Main features of all animals:

they are multicellular

their cells contain a nucleus but no cell walls or chloroplasts

they feed on organic substances made by other living things

A typical animal cell

Main features of all plants:

they are multicellular

their cells contain a nucleus, chloroplasts and cellulose cell walls

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 they all feed by photosynthesis

Your notes

A typical plant cell

The Animal Kingdom

Several main features are used to place organisms into groups within
the animal kingdom

Vertebrates
All vertebrates have a backbone

There are 5 classes of vertebrates

Vertebrate Table

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Your notes

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 Your notes

Vertebrate classification

Invertebrates
Invertebrates do not possess a backbone

One of the morphological characteristics used to classify invertebrates is

whether they have legs or not

All invertebrates with jointed legs are part of the arthropod phylum

They are classified further into the following groups:

Arthropod groups table

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 Your notes

Arthropodclassification

Examiner Tips and Tricks

Make sure that you are aware of the distinction between the main features
of a group of organisms and the defining features of a group:

An exam question might ask you to state the main features of a

group of organisms; these are given above, and some of these main
features are shared between the groups, e. g. all of the vertebrates
have a backbone, and all of the arthropods have segmented bodies

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It is also possible that an exam question might ask you to give a
defining feature of one of these groups, i. e. a feature that sets a
group apart from the other groups, e. g. mammals have fur while the Your notes
other vertebrates do not, and crustaceans have 2 pairs of antennae
while this is not the case for the other groups of arthropods

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 Features of Organisms Continued
Your notes

The Five Kingdoms: Extended

Extended Tier Only
The first division of living things in the classification system is to put them
into one of five kingdoms

They are:

Animals

Plants

Fungi

Protoctists

Prokaryotes

Main features of all fungi (e. g. moulds, mushrooms, yeast)

usually multicellular

cells have nuclei and cell walls not made from cellulose

do not photosynthesize but feed by saprophytic (on dead or decaying

material) or parasitic (on live material) nutrition

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 A typical fungal cell

Main features of all Protoctists (e. g. Amoeba, Paramecium,

Your notes
Plasmodium)
most are unicellular but some are multicellular

all have a nucleus, some may have cell walls and chloroplasts

meaning some protoctists photosynthesise and some feed on

organic substances made by other living things

Two examples ofprotoctist cells

Main features of all Prokaryotes (bacteria, blue-green algae)

often unicellular

cells have cell walls (not made of cellulose) and cytoplasm but no
nucleus or mitochondria

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 Your notes

A typical bacterial cell

The Plant Kingdom: Extended

Extended Tier Only
At least some parts of any plant are green, caused by the presence of the
pigment
chlorophyll which absorbs energy from sunlight for the process of
photosynthesis

The plant kingdom includes organisms such as ferns and flowering plants

Ferns
Have leaves called fronds

Do not produce flowers but instead reproduce by spores produced on the

underside of fronds

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 Your notes

Ferns

Ferns reproduce byspores found in the underside of their

fronds

Flowering plants
Reproduce sexually by means of flowers and seeds

Seeds are produced inside the ovary found at the base of the flower

Can be divided into two groups – monocotyledons and dicotyledons

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 Your notes

Wheat plants are monocotyledons

Sunflowers are dicotyledons

Howdo you distinguish between monocotyledons

and dicotyledons?

Flowers

Flowers from monocotyledons contain petals in multiples of 3 while

flowers from dicotyledons contain petals in multiples of 4 or 5

Leaves

Leaves from monocotyledons have parallel leaf veins while

leaves from dicotyledons have reticulated leaf veins

Reticulated = form a web-like network throughout the leaf

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 Leaves from monocotyledons are narrow and grass-like while leaves from
dicotyledons tend to have broader leaves that come in a wide range of shapes
Your notes

Comparing monocots anddicots

Examiner Tips and Tricks

Identification of monocotyledons and dicotyledons comes up fairly frequently
in the multiple choice paper and so it is worth learning the two differences
between their flowers and leaves.

Viruses: Extended
Extended Tier Only
Viruses are not part of any classification system as they are not considered living things

They do not carry out the seven life processes for themselves, instead they
take over a host cell’s metabolic pathways in order to make multiple copies of
themselves

Virus structure is simply genetic material (RNA or DNA) inside a protein coat

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 Your notes

Structure of a typical virus

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